There is something that’s often missing in the world of light
\npop – soul.<\/p>\n
I don’t mean to suggest that we need to hear Ray Charles or
\nAretha Franklin influences in pop. But a lot of what I hear on the
\nradio (and, in some cases, in what I review) sounds very sterile,
\nas if what I’m hearing was created in a lab, not in a recording
\nstudio.<\/p>\n
In the case of Ronna, her debut disc
\nDay 14<\/i> suffers from this fate. To her credit, she does
\ndiscover some emotion and conveys it in some songs well, but by
\nthen it’s too late.<\/p>\n
When you have a disc produced by former Chicago bassist\/vocalist
\nPeter Cetera, one might expect the album to sound like his old
\ngroup. Fortunately, this is not the case; Ronna is allowed to
\ndevelop her own unique style and voice on this album. The problem
\nis, Ronna still is developing her style, so many of the
\nperformances on the first half of the disc sound tentative.<\/p>\n
Things start out well with “Heart Shaped World,” but Ronna soon
\nshows the weaknesses in her musical development. The very next
\ntrack, “Everything Comes To You,” is a major step down both
\nmusically (the rhythm seems very jagged) and lyrically (“Your
\ntwo-way mirror has got no doors”?) Other tracks, such as “13 Days
\nOf Daisy” and “Sweet Pretender”, almost seem like Ronna is trying
\nto turn each song’s verses into a novel – simplicity is sometimes
\nthe best path.<\/p>\n
There were one or two times where it seemed like Ronna was
\nhaving difficulties staying on-key – namely, the album’s closer
\n“Convince Me”, which admittedly has a weird chord progression from
\nthe bridge to the chorus.<\/p>\n
However, this isn’t to say that
\nDay 14<\/i> is a bad album; it’s just that it often sounds like
\nRonna is not singing from the heart. Often, Ronna’s sound is
\nsimilar to that of Sheryl Crow, but Ronna’s voice just doesn’t seem
\nto emote the same way that Crow’s does.<\/p>\n
Finally, Ronna seems to wake up and kicks things into gear.
\nTracks like “Nowhereville” and “New York Rain” are among the best
\non
\nDay 14<\/i>, and they highlight just how good her music can be
\nonce things start clicking. Too bad the energy level isn’t
\ncontinued on tracks like “Waiting For You” – though it picks up
\nagain on “One Fine Day”.<\/p>\n
Cutting an album is every musician’s dream, and Ronna is
\nobviously thrilled to be living out that dream on
\nDay 14<\/i>. But while this album shows some promise, it also
\nshows that dreams need constant work – and she has her work cut out
\nfor her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7265],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38698","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ronna","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38698"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}